We're in this for the long haul, guys! This porch project will consume about 100 hours of labor. No seriously, that's an actual estimation. So far, we are about half the way there.

But, this past weekend we made some serious progress, specifically in the form of balustrades.

A what? People, this is a learning environment. Balustrades are the entire handrail unit. (I just learned that, like 10 minutes before posting this).

We took a minor step back to assess some of the historical photographs we received from Content's previous owners (Side note: Stay tuned for a FUN collaboration which will be part of a 3-post series on the historical information we now have!)

In the old pictures, you can distinctly see a large, center staircase on the porch. As we had planned, before seeing old photos, to bring this feature back, we were pleased to be on an accurate architectural path.

The current set of stairs, which sits to the west side of the porch, are brick and will be permanent removed. This brick will be used to disguise the blah concrete footings, which are ugly, at best.

Aside from the steps, we also plan to keep the current, decorative "X" design, which flanks the handrail runs, and will space the balusters wider apart in hopes of opening up the sunset view over the river, just across the street.

Original "X" detail that will remain as part of renovated porch design.

We contemplated reverting the balastrade design back to the original 1890 grid pattern (kinda hard to see in the photo above) but the intricate design would have been WAY more time consuming for John and would have exceeded our entire porch budget on the handrails alone.

So, we opted for the 1960s design that was introduced when the house was moved away from the rivers edge, to the other side of the street, now its current location.

We took a little creative licencing with the handrails, and customized a new profile which we hope will add shadow and interest to the porch.

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